Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) has urged the government to establish an agricultural intelligence system for assessing the impact of weather on the crop production. This would enable to tackle the adverse impact of climate change on the agriculture sector.
?The intelligence system would be able to provide inputs on production of essential commodities while increasing pest surveillance and enhancing climate literacy, ? said Mangala Rai, director general of ICAR. He said agriculture sector would continue to be a losing proposition, unless there is a huge investment in water management and adaptation technology for mitigating the impact of climate change.
?We must provide incentives for conserving carbon, water and energy while investing in creating infrastructure for water management,? Rai said.
While stressing on the need to reduce dependence upon agriculture, he proposed for ?creating alternate livelihood options?. For fighting the adverse impact of climate change on agriculture sector, Rai has suggested measures such as investment in adaptation research in areas like ?land use system, resource conservation technologies and pest surveillance.?
?We must acknowledge that cost of adaptation to climate change would be huge. Extending greater insurance coverage to farmers and crops, would definitely help the agriculture sector tackling climate change issues,? he said.
For making agriculture viable, Rai has suggested generation of eco-region specific technology and focus on enhancement of water productivity and efficiency of nutrient usage.
India along with other south Asian countries have been facing huge problems in agriculture sector due to rising global prices of commodities and diversion of land for non-agricultural use.
?Agriculture sector is not only facing fragile weather conditions, but also it is being impacted by stagnation in farmers? income, degradation of natural resources and change in demand patterns due to rising number of organized retail outlets,? he said.
According to agricultural scientists, productivity of most cereals would decrease due to increase in temperature and decrease in water availability especially in Indo-Gangetic plains. For Rabi crops in particular, for every 1 degree centigrade increase in temperature reduces wheat production by 4-5 million tonne.
?This decrease in production could be reduced to 1-2 million tonne through timely planting,? said a senior agricultural scientist with ICAR.
According to ICAR, in South Asia, the agriculture sector?s share in GDP is around 18% while more than 55% of the population depend on this sector. In India, while 58% of the population depends on agriculture, its share in GDP is around 17.5%.
World Agro Congress from Feb 4
The 4th World Congress on Conservation Agriculture will be held in Delhi between February 4-7, 2009. Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) will jointly organise the congress. The meet would bring in researchers, farmers, extension – workers, policy planners, corporate leaders and NGOs for discussing issues related to innovations in agriculture for realising improved efficiency, equity and environment.